


It's Only Forever

by FireEye



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: As Sarah learns the hard way, the Labyrinth has a mind of its own.





	It's Only Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/gifts).



“Sarah.  Open the door.”

The door remained closed.  Sarah didn’t so much as dignify him with a response.

“I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

Jareth sighed theatrically, smoothing the crease developing between his brows with his thumb.  Behind him, the hallway had rearranged itself.  It was the third time in ten minutes.

“Oh, I am doing my best,” he remarked.  “Show a _little_ patience, would you?”

~*~

The room itself was a resplendent vision of a princess’s chambers.  Soft, dark velvet curtains lined the windows and were hung the canopy of the bed.  Warm tapestries adorned the cold stone walls, depicting tales that shifted and changed with the shadows on the wall.

There was a table stacked with parlor games.  The table itself, and its matching chairs, had been carved from a single tree and stained a rich mahogany.  The padding of the chairs matched the velvet curtains.  A bowl of fruit sat untouched on another, smaller table against the wall – it had changed from peaches to apples to pomegranates, and back again.

The bed was piled with pillows and soft blankets and a menagerie of plush animals, and collapsed among them hugging a pillow against her chest, a girl in over her head.

Beyond the window, the Labyrinth sprawled outward from the castle beyond the city walls, stretching into an eternal sunrise.  At least, when it felt like sunrise.  Time was most inconsistent, and often late.

Jareth slipped in between the morning light and the shadow of the moon.  The scattered light of his own shadow fell over the bed, and Sarah lifted her head to glare at him.

“I did everything in my power to save you from this.”  He didn’t seem particularly broken up about it.  If anything, there was a wryness layered beneath the resignation in his voice.  “Really, I did.”

Shoving the pillow aside, Sarah clambered to her feet and stormed for the window.  She brushed right past him.  Jareth turned with her but didn’t follow.

“Must you always be so cruel?”

“ _Cruel_?” Sarah echoed.  A hollow laugh bubbled up in her chest.  “You... _imprisoned_ me here-...”

“ _I_ did no such thing,” Jareth reminded her sharply.  The tapestries rippled, changing colors and patterns.

In solving the Labyrinth, all the power within it had fallen upon Sarah’s shoulders.  It had wasted no time in dragging her under.  In making it a part of its whole.

“Go away,” she told him.

He faded.

Then blinked out altogether.

On the table, the peaches turned to cherries.

~*~

Goblins groveled at her feet as she walked through the city.  She ignored them, passing through the City Gate and onto the twisting road through the junkyard that would take her to the twining, brittle path of the forest beyond.

Beyond the forest, the walls of the Labyrinth.  Holding her in, as it had once held her out.

It was different now.

She stepped through the door at the end of the brittle path.

All of the ways opened before her as she moved through the winding maze of hedge and stone.  Each guileless, welcoming – inviting her to walk freely.  The few denizens she crossed paths with, she paid little mind, and most stood in awe in the shadows.

It was an easy afternoon’s stroll to the Outer Gate.

Sarah couldn’t go any further.

Not for lack of trying.

The vast, empty deadlands beyond the Labyrinth’s Outer Wall simply didn’t _go_ anywhere.  No matter how far she walked, no matter how long she walked without looking back, she was always within sight of the castle and a brisk walk to the Outer Wall.

On the hill where she had first stepped into this world, she paused in thought.

There had to be a way.

She closed her eyes.

She held dominion over the Labyrinth.

She controlled it.  It couldn’t control her.

“I want to go home.”

She felt the curtains of the world part for her.  Taking a deep breath, she stepped through.

When she opened her eyes, she was back on the castle’s doorstep.

Her shriek of frustration startled the palace guards stationed at the door.

~*~

A soft humming drifted down from the tower up above.

Sarah scowled, taking the stairs two at a time.  Jareth waited outside her bedroom door; his gaze fell upon her before she’d even reached the landing.

“Pleasant walk?” he asked, tone amicable, as she planted herself in front of him.

“Why are you even here?”

“To make you happy.”  Regarding her dour expression, he added in an acerbic undertone, “Should such a feat prove possible.”

With a huff, Sarah threw the door open.  He caught it casually with one hand, both holding it open for her and preventing her from locking him out again.  Once she had stepped through herself, he shadowed her footsteps.

“Be reasonable.  You are my Queen; I know how to make life as we know it tolerable.”  Jareth paused to let that sink in.  “Let's try to work together, shall we?”

Sarah whirled back around, stopping him in her path.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

His eyebrows raised at the question.  “Should it?”

“Stop,” she told him.  “Just... _stop_.”

Everything stopped.

Even the clock hung on the wall.

Jareth, however, angled his head.  Sarah stepped closer, staring up at him.

“You really want me to be happy?”

“ _Want_?” He echoed meaningfully.  Then hummed as he thought it over.  “I am... _compelled_ to that end, yes.”

“Then _take it back_.  All of it.  I don’t _want_ it.”

Jareth stared down at her, and smiled perhaps despite himself.  She was determined and full of fire; young enough to believe and too young to understand _forever_.

And she had _won_.

Of course the Labyrinth would claim her for its new Queen.

“That can’t be done.”

Her shoulders slumped.  She stomped over to the balcony, frustration bubbling over.

“I cannot break the rules,” Jareth explained, for all that she wasn’t listening, “only bend them when is convenient.”

Sarah slumped down against the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest.  After a moment’s hesitation, Jareth sank down beside her.

She tensed as he reached to tuck her hair back behind her ear with his fingertips.

“If it’s any consolation, I do understand how you feel.”

A small, shuddering sigh escaped her, and – for the first time since she’d arrived – she leaned into him.  Not because she wanted _him_ there, but perhaps simply because he _was_ there.  Draping his arm over her shoulders, he combed his fingers through her hair.

The tension eased from her slowly as he began humming again.  As they sat in the shadow of the sunrise, he began piecing together words and breaking them apart again.  The half-composed melody took on the strains of a lullaby.

The world began to soften and drift away, like tufts in a cloud.

Jareth was the last thing to go, carrying her with him weightlessly.

~*~

Sarah awoke in her bed.

Beyond the window, the Labyrinth’s eternal sunrise bathed the room in a golden morning glow.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought in terms of agents the Labyrinth might send along for comforting purposes, Jareth made sense with the singing to sleep tag. :)


End file.
